Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on July 3 announced $55 million for commercial and residential energy storage projects on Long Island.
The program is launching with nearly $15 million in incentives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Energy storage projects supported by the initiative are aimed at moving the state closer to its target of 3,000 megawatts of energy storage deployed by 2030, the equivalent of powering 40 percent of New York’s residences.
The announcement is part of Governor Cuomo’s Green New Deal clean energy jobs agenda, which is intended to move the state toward carbon neutrality.
The nearly $15 million commitment is immediately available to Long Island residents and businesses for commercial and residential projects through NYSERDA’s Retail Energy Storage Incentive Program. The remainder will be allocated within the next three to five years and targeted in a manner to drive down costs and scale up the market for these clean energy technologies. The incentives will support energy storage installed at customer sites for stand-alone systems or systems paired with solar.
As renewable energy resources like wind and solar increase across the state, energy storage will enhance the efficiency of the electric grid in order to maximize the benefits of the renewable resources. Energy storage systems will also enable the state to meet its peak power needs while reducing the reliance on older, less efficient fossil-fuel generating plants.
For commercial installations, the incentive program will support new grid-connected energy storage systems of up to five megawatts of alternating current connection located either with load behind the meter or connected directly to the distribution system. The first block incentive will offer $250 per kilowatt-hour of energy storage installed. Eligible systems can be installed alone or paired with on-site generation like solar.
For residential installations, NYSERDA and PSEG Long Island are jointly launching a solar-plus energy storage program that provides new projects on Long Island with an up-front storage incentive through NYSERDA’s NY-Sun Program and additional compensation through PSEG Long Island’s Dynamic Load Management tariff. The tariff pays customers to reduce the amount of electricity used from the electric grid during hours when demand is highest. NY-Sun will initially release two incentive blocks for new residential solar-plus-storage systems beginning at $250 per kilowatt-hour of installed energy storage and declining to $200 per kilowatt-hour.